Imeet Javi, a great photographer and an even better friend, at a cosy café in Santa Cristina d’Aro. With the assignment to develop a feature on the megalithic tour in Romanyà de la Selva, we begin our day with an easy chat while we walk serenely to the start of the trail. We talk about work, about holidays coming soon, about our projects and dreams… and about all those small concerns that fill our daily lives. We start walking under a bright sun — the landscape shines beautifully today. Almost without noticing, a typically luxuriant Mediterranean forest surrounds us: cork oaks, lots of brooms that turn the bushes yellow, rosemary, thyme… We walk in silence for a few minutes, forgetting the noise of the world to connect with nature around us and with ourselves. We happily dive into the mystery of the forest, ready to travel in time through the stones in a journey in which death will become the highest expression of life.
The first stop takes us back further than the 3rd century BC. We find a rectangular megalithic cist made of 13 granite tombstones standing vertically. Spread around us we find the stones that had once covered this funerary monument for a single body and a single use. Who knows about the secrets hidden inside these rocks, where the spirits of our ancestors lie. In this forest, one can literally ‘breathe in’ its magic. A short distance further, we find a huge cork oak, a symbol of one of the industrial giants of the area: the cork industry and it’s many products. The size of the tree fixes the scale of our own dimensions in relation to the environment — true humility helps us grow. Javi and I carry on rambling, now about how important or relative our worries are. Amid a soundtrack of birds drunk on spring, we reach a pile of big stones in front of what looks like a collective tomb - the time machine stops here around the 2nd century BC. Its round shapes evoke a festive atmosphere, as if celebrating life. This spot contrasts with the next landscape, the graveyard of Romanyà de la Selva, a rectangular building demarcated by stonewalls and connected to the other world through four huge cypresses. Here rests the body of the famous writer Mercè Rodoreda whose words we evoke: “Bury me where I die. I don’t care. (…) Death, incredibly big, stops your heart and gives you to the earth, wherever. (…) If our soul wanders lost in the sky, I want it to be amongst the stars, gripping the moon as a furious cat.”
A certain feeling of retreat accompanies us until we reach the end of our route: the Dolmen of Daina’s Cave. This monument from the 2nd century BC is a big funerary chamber composed of 10 granite tombstones surrounded by a circular burial mound and this itself by a ring made of another 37 tombstones. People were buried inside together with their personal belongings to be used in the next life. We laugh, imagining what would we take with us today. Harmoniously integrated to the surroundings, we stay for a while by this monument, haunted by the spell of its beauty from all perspectives. Our short walk comes to a close while we carry on chatting about the opportunities that fill our lives, and we arrange to meet the following weekend right in the same place, this time, with our children, a picnic and the same will to humbly celebrate life!//
